Land of a Hundred Wonders (22 page)

“Check.”

“Last off, you're gonna take Grampa's things to the hospital and have a real nice visit.” Fingering the rose she's got in her hair, Clever adds with a smile, “Tell him for me not to worry. The flowers are doin' mighty fine. 'Specially the Texas ones.”

I'm sure Grampa won't mind being last off. In fact, he'd be disappointed as hell in me if I didn't take care of this Cooter problem first 'fore I go see him. It's the cowboy way to stand up for a body that cannot stand up for hisself. 'Specially one that is about to get his neck stretched in a permanent kind of way. 'Specially since that neck belongs to Cooter. Grampa's as fond of him as he is of Billy. All those years calling birds and cooking together up at the diner have bound those two together like biscuits and gravy and birds of a feather.

After I get Clever replumped, she hands me the still half-full soup bowl, saying in a barely-there voice, “Gib?”

“Yeah?”

“You're gonna stay focused and remember, ain't ya?” Her lids are heavy and her breath noodley when she takes a good hard look, first at the ceiling poster, and then back at me. “Don't think I could bear it if ya let me down, Butch.”

Not Copacetic

If it's all the same to you, I'll drive,” I tell Billy, lifting the truck keys off the hook near the back door. He's been reteaching me behind Grampa's back. First time we went out, I was beyond ascared. (Considering what happened to me and my mama and daddy, a vehicle of any sort can feel a lot like a murder weapon. You understand.) But I practiced and practiced on the back roads, and Billy has patience when it comes to me, so I'm not half-bad. The staying on my side of the road part could use a little more work, but my turns are nice and smooth.

Billy's next to me on the bench seat, holding a box full of Grampa's jammies, his whittling knife, his Johnny Cash albums, and the bird book with the glossy pictures. I also slapped together a couple of peanut butter and honeys for him.

“Tell me
exactly
what Miss Jessie said to you on the phone,” Billy says as I back out of the cottage drive, careful to check BOTH mirrors like he taught me.

As much as I hate lying to a Vietnam veteran, the Kid is right. This outlaw business is between her and me. Billy'd never go along with a jailbreak. He's too law-abiding. I have to ditch him.

“Well,” I say. “Let's see . . . oh, that's right. Miss Jessie asked if you could go over to her place and see if Vern and Teddy need any help with the horses since she's not sure when she'll be able to get home.” We're running down the road next to the lake. Charles Michael Murphy would adore being out on that sleek water today. Casting his rod and reel, spinning Texas tales. “So . . . ah . . . I'm gonna drop you at her farm and then I'm gonna run over to see Grampa at the hospital and when we're done visitin', I'll come back to get ya, all right?”

“But—” He cuts off as we pass by Top O' the Mornin'. A white bag is cartwheeling through the empty lot. The candy-cane window awnings are hanging lifeless. Even the lucky horseshoe looks more crooked. Am I remembering right? Didn't Clever tell me that Janice and Miss Florida would tend to things while Grampa was in the hospital? Well, if they are, they're doing a deplorable job.

Seeing the diner abandoned like that is spooking me, and maybe Billy feels that way, too, 'cause the both of us don't say much 'til I slow down in front of Miss Jessie's drive-up. Where normally I feel breathless at the sight of all this gorgeousness, the reason I can't catch air right this minute is because who should be sitting on a stump near the road like a wart on a beauty queen's face but evil's own
Emissary: Agent.
Sneaky Tim Ray Holloway.

“This here's private property,” he gnarls, when I pull up next to him. “Go away.”

Billy gets out of the truck and stands tall next to this runt. “Miss Jessie sent me to help with the horses.”

“Where's Jessie at anyways?” Holloway winks up at me. “I'm hungry.”

It's been bothering me and bothering me
why
Sneaky Tim Ray would go along with the sheriff's frame-up of Cooter. True, Holloway is walking the path of the wicked and could be lying about seeing Cooter choke Buster dead over a game of craps just for the kick of it, but . . . I don't know. Never known this belly crawler to do somethin' for nuthin'. Something seems off here. Something isn't
Copacetic: Okay
.

Wait just a cotton-pickin' minute.

I just recalled how Sneaky Tim Ray and Cooter ambushed us in the woods last night, stole that treasure map off us. With Cooter behind bars now for murdering Buster . . . yes . . . Sneaky Tim Ray can keep that treasure ALL FOR HIMSELF! Next time he comes hunting for me, he'll be dripping in sapphires and rubies. Because that's what the treasure's GOT to be, never mind the lack of an X on that map. Pirate booty.
Not
prime tobacco like I first thought.

Billy grinds down the smoking butt Sneaky Tim Ray tosses at his boot, and says syrup slow, the way he does right before he's about to explode, “Miss Jessie's keepin' vigil up at the hospital with Charlie Murphy. He's had a heart attack.”

“Well, ain't that too bad,” Sneaky Tim Ray's lips say, but his eyes say otherwise. “Ya gonna be on your own now, darlin'? Footloose and fancy free?” He laughs and laughs 'til he coughs and coughs.

When Billy bunches his fists, Sneaky Tim Ray, so used to getting pummeled, is alert and harefooted, and already 'bout half gone through the trees.

“Leave him be, Billy. I gotta get to the hospital and you gotta check those horses. Time's runnin' out,” I remind him. (As you know, I'm lying. Right after I leave here, I'm heading for the sheriff station to bust out Cooter.)

When he doesn't respond, I shout, “Knock knock.”

“Who's there?” Billy answers, finally dragging his feet back to me.

“Love,” I say, taking hold of his hand when he passes it through the window.

“Love who?”

“You, Billy Brown. Y-O-U. And not the same way I love Grampa. That is not a joke, by the way, just in case you thought it was.”

“I know the way you mean,” he says with a lot of confidence. Boy, does he ever seem different! Usually after an encounter such as the one he just had with Sneaky Tim Ray, Billy's temper would be choking the reasonable outta him. But he seems hardly riled at all. Maybe it's the scoop after scoop of sweet lovin' I gave him last night. Maybe all that his Vietnam-bombed nerves needed was a little of that homegrown sugar. (We did NOT pound the snow possum, if that's what you're wondering. The both of us agreed that we wouldn't break out his wedding tackle 'til we're on our honeymoon.)

“Ya better git,” Billy says, planting a kiss on my forehead with those extra-fine lips a his. “Give my love to Grampa. Drive slow and keep a good lookout. There's things happenin' around here that're makin' my stomach feel like it's tangled up in barbwire. Ya know what I mean?”

My stomach is feeling jumbled as well. And yes, I do know what that means.
The Importance of Perception in Meticulous Investigation: Gut Instincts:
Follow that feeling in the pit of your stomach. Many mysteries are solved by a reporter who followed their gut hunches.

Free at Last

After sliding into a spot in the sheriff station lot, I get to feeling so jumpy that I forget to put the truck in P and it hops halfway to the Methodist church. Sure as May follows June, Reverend Jack will tell me during our visit next week that breaking Cooter Smith out of jail was not an
appropriate
way for me to behave. (Sorry, Reverend. There's no two ways about it. I can't let Grampa or Clever down.) If I don't cut Cooter loose now, the sheriff is gonna settle this nastiness between them once and for all. Like
all
feuds, this one goes way back. “Niggas belong in their place, and that Smith boy is overreachin' his,” is
exactly
what LeRoy says after he's had a few too many down at Frank's Tap. “Like Daddy Carl always said, ya get 'em educated and they'll turn into rabble-rousers.”

What LeRoy's referring to is when Cooter went off to that college in North Carolina, but he doesn't have that right. Miss Florida told me that Cooter was a Blue Devil, not a Rabble-Rouser, which just goes to illustrate how messed up the sheriff's thinking can get when Cooter Smith is the subject of the conversation. You're probably thinking it's his color that makes the sheriff hate Cooter so, but you'd only be a little right. Mostly, it's
love
.

Cooter's mama, Darnell, the one who went missing selling peanuts up roadside years ago? Clever told
me
that Janice told
her
that back when the bunch of them were young, the sheriff was badly smitten and having bushels of hot sex with the lovely Darnell. But Darnell, not equally smitten, she up and dropped the sheriff and took up with Cooter's daddy, Willie. Who Cooter takes after EXACTLY. I mean, like an identical twin. I've seen pictures. So that's why I've always thought the sheriff has it out for Cooter. LeRoy was scorned. And he's still furious as hell.

Focus . . . Gib . . . focus. Keep your mind on THE PLAN.
Pulling open the station's front door, I call out, “Anybody home?” The only greeting I get back is Skeeter Davis singing out from a radio, so I make my way toward the back room where I know they do all their important business. This is where me and Grampa get our fishing licenses. There's knotty wood paneling and file cabinets and telephones and Deputy Jimmy Lee Boyd. His head is lying flat on one of two metal desks next to a burger bag from Teeter's Drive-In. Boy, this is going to be A LOT easier than Clever and me figured on. Let's see . . . from what I remember from my western movies, the cell keys should be hanging on a hook right around this. . . .

“Hey,” the deputy pops up saying, a paper clip stuck to his flushed cheek. “Didn't hear ya come in.”

A few years older than me, with a button nose and the type of sandy hair that always looks like it could use a wash, the deputy is the only child of Miss Loretta, who owns Candy World. She accidentally dropped him into one of her steel melting-chocolate vats when he was a baby, so Jimmy Lee is well known for being sorta dumb. But good with a gun. Almost
always
wins the target-shooting contest during Cray Ridge Days.

“Well, hey, Jimmy Lee,” I say. “How ya been?”

“Fine as a frog hair,” he says, trying to hide a yawn. “What can I do ya for today, Gib?”

“I . . . ah . . .” (Clever and me hadn't planned this part out. Least I don't think we did.) "I ... um ...” There's a CRAY RIDGE DAYS AUGUST 16-23 FUN FOR EVERYONE poster sitting on the corner of his desk. “I . . . ah . . . stopped by to see if you or the sheriff wanted to buy some raffle tickets.”

“Already got mine.” Jimmy Lee squints toward the big black clock on the wall. “Almost one thirty, the sheriff should be back from lunch soon. Maybe he'd like a couple,” he says, peeking into the top of the burger bag with a disappointed grunt. “Sorry to hear about your grampa's heart givin' out, by the way. How's he doin'?”

“On the mend,” I say, my eyes scouring the room. I don't see a cell key hanging anywheres in plain sight and I don't have a bunch of time to go looking for it. I need to get over to the hospital to make sure Grampa really
is
on the mend.

Jimmy Lee says, “Been hot, ain't it?”

“Sure has.”

“Ya hear 'bout the goin's-on in Browntown?”

“No, I haven't,” I lie. The jail key must be in his desk or something. “What happened?”

“There was a fire,” he says, getting all revved up.

“A fire? In Browntown? Why, Jimmy Lee, that's a front-page story! Would ya mind terribly if I interview you for the
Gazette
?” I ask, with no intention whatsoever of doing so.

“Why, an interview'd suit me just fine, sugar.”

“Well then, let's get started.” I sit down across from him, trying to look as professional as can be. “Oh, my goodness, ya know what I just remembered?”

“What?”

“Well, over the years of interviewing important subjects from all walks of life, I've found a bitty bite of something sweet helps my subjects to . . . well . . . maintain their liveliness. Would ya care for a coupla your mama's chocolate-covered cherries 'fore we begin? Just happen to have some right here,” I say, gratefully recalling THE PLAN. Clever slipped the pills through a hole she made in the bottom of the candy with a pencil. They're a mite melty from being in my pocket too long, but Jimmy Lee won't mind. The boy loves his vittles no matter the form.

“Don't mind if I do,” he says, lifting the chocolates outta my hand and disappearing them into his mouth.

I hope Clever was right. She figured if Billy has to take one tranquilizing pill to calm himself down, it'll take at least three of 'em to knock Jimmy Lee's “lard ass out.” (The Kid's nimble fingers stole the pills right outta Billy's pocket.) “How about another?”

“And that fire ain't all that's been happenin' in Browntown,” he says, plucking the chocolate outta my palm. “More goin' on over there last night than a Ringlin' Brothers show.”

“Oh, Jimmy Lee,” I chuckle. “You are the funny one.” (Clever also instructed me to give any male I run across during the course of the jailbreak tons of compliments. High praise makes men putty in a girl's hands.) “Do go on.”

Giving me a know-it-all grin, he says, “Guess who we found in the dump once we got the fire put out?”

“I'm sure little ole me has no idea.”